break-justfile-into-separate-hidden-steps.md

Break Justfile Into Separate Hidden Steps

With just and a project's justfile, I can get a summary of the commands available to run against my project by running just --list. If I try to breakdown a complex, multi-step command into separate just commands, it will be nice for organization, but it will clutter the list output. I can mark specific commands as hidden or internal by preceding them with an underscore (_).

Here is a justfile from one of my projects that only lists a single command setup which itself is supported by three internal commands: _check-brew, _install-deps, and _install-go-tools.

# Install all required development dependencies
setup: _check-brew _install-deps _install-go-tools

# Check if brew is installed
_check-brew:
    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    if ! command -v brew &> /dev/null; then
        echo "Error: Homebrew is not installed"
        echo "Please install from https://brew.sh"
        exit 1
    fi

brew_deps := '''
    go
    sqlite3
'''

# Install brew dependencies
_install-deps:
    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    deps=$(echo '{{brew_deps}}' | tr -s '[:space:]' ' ' | xargs)
    for pkg in $deps; do
        if ! brew list $pkg &>/dev/null; then
            echo "Installing $pkg..."
            brew install $pkg
        else
            echo "✓ $pkg already installed"
        fi
    done

# Install Go development tools
_install-go-tools:
    go install github.com/pressly/goose/v3/cmd/goose@latest